Apart from being the program specialist for Teaching Central America at Teaching for Change, I am proud to be a middle school teacher in the historic immigrant neighborhood of Buford Highway.

Students in a course at Yale called Ethnicity, Race, & Migration: Central Americans in the United States developed capstone projects on contemporary issues that can be useful for high school classrooms.

Throughout February 2026, the Maya Voices Program provided a space for Maya families and students from the Buford Highway neighborhood of metro Atlanta to learn about their history, culture, and social issues in a Maya-centered space. Metro Atlanta teachers of Maya heritage students also experienced a professional development session. 

Yesenia Lopez, Language Arts/English teacher at DuVal High School in Lanham, Maryland, used three resources from the Teaching Central America website.

Every year, I pair my unit on story elements with Indigenous history and culture. I teach about the Maya peoples in my language arts class through the Maya K’iché creation story from the Popol Wuj.

Manfredo De la Cruz, 4th grade dual language teacher at Mount Vernon Community School, wanted to make it a priority to celebrate the cultures and identities of the many students from Central America and Mexico in their classroom.

A team of ESL/Bilingual teachers at William Ramsay Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia engaged their students in a unit on Central America: Exploring Central America Through Culture and Geography.

Kyle Lawton used selected poems from the poetry section of TeachingCentralAmerica.org to incorporate Central American voices into his language classes at Springlake High School in Springlake, Minnesota. 

William Korte, Language teacher at Seed Charter School in Evanston, Illinois, introduced his students to Central America by teaching about agriculture and sustainability.

From September 2024 to June 2025, Teaching Central America program specialist Jonathan Peraza Campos and I taught an independent ethnic studies and political education class entitled, "Vos* del Sur: Central American Studies from the Global/U.S. South."

For the past six years, the staff and students at Bruce Monroe @ Park View Elementary School in Washington, D.C. have dedicated six weeks in the early fall to a schoolwide, dedicated focus on Central America. Their study culminates in a community showcase. 

On October 16, 2025, esteemed Salvadoran author Mario Bencastro paid a virtual visit to my class "Latino Communities in Metropolitan Washington, DC," at the University of California's Washington, D.C. campus (UCDC) campus as part of Teach Central America Week.

A local educational program called Escuelitas on Buford Highway participated in Teach Central America Week with adults and children.

In my 6th grade class in the Atlanta, Georgia metro area, I emphasized Native American and Indigenous stories during my language arts unit about narrative writing and story elements in the fall of 2024.

Maximo Alfaro approached teaching about Central America by integrating various cultural, historical, and geographical elements into a cohesive unit in his middle school classroom at District of Columbia International Public Charter School.

By Jody Peltason
Teaching Central America materials have been fantastic resources for my AP English Language and Composition course at Coolidge HS, which focuses on analyzing and writing about expository and persuasive texts.

By Michelle Cohen
In my ESL/Bilingual class at Albert Einstein HS, I taught a unit on Central America over the course of one week.

By Bryan Cockrell
I teach 9th grade students in Montgomery County, Maryland who are developing their English language proficiency.

In a country that is deeply divided, the staff at Bruce Monroe @ Park View Elementary School show how to bridge that gap with a schoolwide exploration of students’ history and culture — and a commitment to activism for justice.

The Central American Student Alliance (CASA) at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas hosted Teaching Central America program specialist Jonathan Peraza Campos to lead a workshop about Central American history and Central American studies education.